Picking up the pieces
by malintzin
Summary: Freshly divorced, Richard Carlisle crosses the path of the Crawleys once again, and finds himself reluctantly dragged into their drama. Against all reason, he accepts to help Mary once more to pick up the pieces that Matthew's death and other events left behind, rebuilding his own life in the process. S4 AU. Written by MrsTater and Malintzin.
1. Smoke screens

_So here's another product of MrsTater's and my crazy minds. Exploring the untold story behind s2 was not enough for our curious minds so we launched this s4 AU. Hope you'll like it! Just like for _Cliveden conversations_, the updates will be quite erratic, so bear with us!_

_**London, spring 1922**_

Around Fleet Street, the passer-by was usually stunned by the never-ending buzz of activity. In the morning, boys in knickers and caps received stacks of fresh newspapers from the back alley warehouses and ran to their designated corners. Men in business suits, tailored and cheap alike, walked in and out the Victorian buildings, mingling for a moment before reaching the shelters of their floors or desks. Secretaries stepped down from the busses, chatting animatedly, sharing the latest gossips before scattering to their respective buildings. In the evening, the same ballet started again, in reverse.

To the innocent observer, the Victorian façades naturally hid the heart of Fleet Street, each building standing strong and tall like a castle of ancient times, reigning on Lord Northcliffe's or Lord Beaverbrook's territories, or the Upstart-from-Glasgow-slums' smaller one. However, the inhabitants of this strange country that was Fleet Street knew better. The real local life blossomed in small restaurants and smoky pubs in which true negotiations were held and informants interviewed. In some places, a kind of truce existed between the populations from rival buildings. Those were the places where an informal dinner could disarm regrettable tensions between editors from the _Daily Mail_ and the _Daily Express_, the places where information could be shared, almost freely, always for a price, high or low.

Then, there were the more private places, monopolized by the members of one gang exclusively, where strangers were barely tolerated and regarded with suspicion. The Smoking Cat was this kind of pub, almost as welcoming as a home to Richard Carlisle. Since the divorce, this was one of the only places where he could have a meal or a drink without casting suspicious glances around him, in search of too observing eyes.

His hurried wedding to Russian heiress Nadia Dimitrova Vronski a few months after the break-up of his year-long engagement to Lady Mary Crawley had not been deemed newsworthy. In fact, people had proved more curious about the hurried wedding of his ex-fiancée to the heir of the Grantham title. His recent divorce, on the other hand, had seemed to transform him into the main focus of Londonian gossips. Apparently, a cuckolded press baron was so much fun to talk about, especially when his now ex-wife lived the big life her family and she had to abandon in Russia back in 1917 at his expense.

In this context, the Smoking Cat, its phonograph always playing New Orleans tunes, its incomparable choice of whisky and rum, and its Caribbean gastronomy – the owner had lived two decades in the British Antilles before returning to the London smog – provided the perfect locale to seek tranquility and privacy before going home to his two year-old son, and devise plans to get his shaken empire under control once again.

If there was a bastard able to use a costly divorce to his advantage, Richard was that bastard, and when Fleet Street would remember that fact, he would have succeeded in the most audacious _coup d'Etat_ he had organized since the one that gave him the control of the _Evening Times _fifteen years ago.

An arm raised above the crowd, motioning him to come closer, and Richard waved back at the bunch of men settled by the bar, a smile forming on his lips as he lit another cigarette. Everyday like the one before, he could count on the gang of not-so-young-anymore Turks that had followed his crazy plans for the last two decades.

* * *

The Smoking Cat was a far cry from any establishment Edith was accustomed to as the Earl of Grantham's daughter, but every night couldn't be the Criterion, she supposed. With Michael soon bound for Germany, she was grateful for every moment they could spend together, no matter where that might occur.

Truth be told, there was something rather appealing about sitting in a darkened corner of a pub with Michael after work, of not dressing for dinner-and of course you couldn't get food like this at the Criterion, or any other restaurant her mother might have approved of. _This is how the other half live_, she thought, sipping a hearty spiced soup that was just the thing after their unseasonably brisk walk over from the _Sketch _office; she was beginning to wonder if this half didn't live better than hers.

At the moment, the other half included a familiar face at the bar with sharp cheekbones, piercing blue eyes beneath a strong brow, and a head of thinning blond hair.

"My God," murmured Edith, giving Michael a nudge beneath the table with her knee, "is that Sir Richard Carlisle?"

"_Hmm_?" Michael looked up rather distractedly in the direction she indicated. "Oh, I suppose it is."

He went back to his newspaper, but Edith was intrigued. It wasn't _such _a great surprise to bump into the publisher _on _Fleet Street, the site of his empire, but it was odd to see her sister's former-fiance for the first time since their tumultuous engagement had come to its end.

Since Mary's husband had died.

Since Sir Richard's own recent divorce.

Funny, that was the first time she'd even heard he'd been married-and a low-profile wedding was not at all what she'd expected from him when his plans with Mary had been for a spectale more suited to royalty than an earl's daughter. Having seen him only in the context of Downton, she took the opportunity now to observe, in a habitat she supposed was more natural to him that her ancestral home-a notion she understood more than she had at the time, feeeling her ancestral was not even the correct context for _her_.

The thought of royalty did stick in her head as she watched him lean against the bar, a cigarette clutched between his fingers with a lazy elegance that seemed so peculiar to a self-made man, slightly aloof from his four companions.

"The king and his court," Edith said, and brought her soup spoon to her lips.

Michael looked up with a laugh. "What, Carlisle?" He twisted in his chair to look back again, then turned back to Edith with a smile on his lips and a glimmer in his eyes. "More like a gang leader."

Edith took another look at the group at the bar; they were all dressed well enough, but there was a certain scruffiness to the four strangers-collars undone, neckties loosened, waistcoats open, days' growth of stubble-that did make Michael's description seem apt. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but the four appeared to have a playful rapport with their leader even as they looked on him with unmistakable admiration.

"Fagin and his little band of ruffians?" she said. "How Dickensian. Do you know them all?"

Michael had, of course, been in Sir Richard's employ, the _Sketch _having belonged to him before Michael bought it.

"Not _well_. They all came over together from Glasgow together, and weren't known for welcoming outsiders into the inner circle. Tremendous egos, the lot of them-Carlisle's the only one who can keep them all in line."

"Because his is the biggest ego of all?"

Michael gave her his lopsided grin over his beer. "Exactly."

Another companionable silence settled over them, during which Edith amused herself watching the Glasgow Gang.

"What do you imagine they're plotting?"

* * *

"Finally escaped Miss Field's evil clutches?" Pete Inzaghi, his star caricaturist, mused as he poured himself a very generous glass of rum. The night was still young yet his New York accent sounded heavier already.

"What a surprise," Duncan Reid, editor of Richard's main sports paper, said in a low groaning tone. "Somebody who likes a job well-done would necessarily be evil to you, wouldn't they Pete? By the way where are my drawings? I remember you promised me..."

"I'm imagining them as we speak, my friend. I just need _inspiration_." For dramatic effect, the artist raised his dark eyebrows, and smoothed his mustache, an amused smile lifting the corner of his mouth. For their _Yankee_ friend, inspiration was always fueled by an unreasonable amount of booze. Sometimes, Richard had to wonder if the outlandish salary he paid Pete was really what kept the man in London, and not the tiny little fact that alcohol was not prohibited in Britain.

"Personally, I'm more interested in _MacIdiot_'s promise," a pair a harsh blue eyes caught Richard's attention.

Always trust Saul Cohen to ask the annoying questions.

"Which one? Not to wear a kilt at your daughter's wedding?" Richard feigned innocence.

The clearly not amused stare his main investor shot back at him told him that the man was beyond pleasantries. Saul was a walking paradox, a disheveled man with rebellious strands of greying hair who organized his business with maniacal care, a millionaire who complained about the price of a pint of guinness, a Jew who could claim to have deeper roots in Glasgow than any of them, since the day he had found an old document attesting that the count of Argyll owed a hundred pounds to one of Saul's ancestors, a certain Solomon Cohen, back in the fourteenth century. Since then, the Cohen dynasty had ridden the wheel of fortune, endured persecutions and confiscations, enjoyed great influence and power. Saul was their latest representant, a man who preferred the shadows of power to the glaring sun of responsibility.

"Back in January, you told us not to worry when you abandoned your bloody shares in the _Telegraph_, and asked us for two months of our patience…."

Richard took a sip of his whisky, enjoying the bitter taste of the Talisker. It was high time to put his newest plan into motion.

"Well, Mr. _Shylock_, two months were the time Keith and I needed to review all the contracts of the _Telegraph_ crew, and check that all the people that count do have a personal contract with my company, and not with the paper."

Blue eyes shone gleefully. Nothing satisfied Saul like the perspective of a good game of chess. This was how Richard had pulled him on board in the first place, providing him with a new challenge.

"And that's the case?"

"Yep," Richard asked for another glass of whisky, and took a cigar out from his inside pocket, the kind reserved for celebration.

"So, when does the Exodus start?" Duncan wondered, always impatient. "Shall I have the pleasure of observing the first effects before I go back home to mind the shop?"

_Home_ was Glasgow, and always would be. That was where everything started.

"When I notify the _Telegraph_ editor that I won't work for them anymore," Pete poured himself another glass.

"That's to say a week from now, when we'll announce our new publication, with Nicky Vassiliev at the helm." Keith spoke for the first time. Until this moment, the man had remained silent. Actually, he was the quiet member of the heteroclite bunch of friends Richard had collected around him years after years. Most of time, he was perfectly content with sipping his drink while smiling at his companions' antics, his narrowed eyes bright with silent mischief. Frivolous banter was not his thing, but he swam in technicalities and commercial strategies like a shark in high waters.

"Vassiliev?" Saul whistled between his teeth, his blue eyes bright with childlike mischief. "You really aren't the spiteful type, are you, _McIdiot?_"

Richard played dumb, decided not to let his friends drag him to this particular place.

"Why?"

"Isn't he the one who introduced you to a certain blonde beauty?"

"Didn't twist my arm either," Richard admitted grudgingly. He had behaved like a blind idiot back then, and he more than deserved this new nickname, as tiring as it was. "Considering he's a convinced _Menchevik_, I couldn't guess that his _ex-girlfriend_ would turn out to be a closet Tsarist nostalgic."

Richard could feel his ears turn red, and he had not drunk enough to be able to blame it on the whisky or the stuffy atmosphere. Pensively, he stroke his newly bearded chin before replying less animatedly.

"And," he began, elbowing his star caricaturist in the ribs. "If some awkward fool had kept his mouth shut about my personal involvement in the press campaign that had led to the end of the British intervention in Russia back in 1919, I most probably be heading home to my shaky family right now, not sitting here in a crowded pub."

To his credit, Pete looked almost apologetic as he drained his glass.

"So, Vassiliev will be at the helm, and with the addition of Pete, sweet talking most of the _Telegraph_ crew to switch sides will be easy as pie." You could always trust Keith to stir a conversation back into the right direction. "If my projections are right, we should be able to attract the best crew from the _Telegraph _before the end the year, and within two years, with only the Conservative idiots left, the paper will sink as surely as the _Titanic_ did. They'll run to Northcliffe and the _Daily Mail_, and we shall get _our_ paper back."

Saul raised an admiring eyebrow and whistled between his teeth. He had to. Keith's projections were always accurate, and generally quite pessimistic, just to be cautious.

"Where do I sign?"

Saul Cohen was the best investor in the world. He hated Northcliffe's guts, for reasons only he knew, and he loved a good adventure.

* * *

"If he's really the ruthless player we always believed him to be," answered Michael, "he's strategizing how to get back in the game. That divorce cost him much more than a chance at a peerage, you know."

"I _don't _know," Edith regarded him with some surprise. "Do you mean his political reputation because of the Tsarist ties?" She had done a column on the plight of disenfranchised Russian aristocrats, though it had not been one of her more popular articles.

"Well there's that, of course, but I was referring to the financial settlement."

This was somewhat of a let down. "I can't imagine a man like Richard Carlisle would come out too badly in a divorce."

"That's the thing, though, he did. There's a child-which rather explains why the marriage occurred in the first place, so quickly on the heels of his break with your sister."

"Indeed." Edith sipped her wine, and shook her head. "What a double standard. If he were a woman who married soon after a whirlwind affair, it would have been all over the papers."

"Yes, well…" Michael shifted in his seat. "He's been made a fool of twice now, in as many years. That's a little more newsworthy. Especially when he's paying for it with a large number of shares in his papers, and his estate."

"Do you mean Haxby?" The surprising turns in this story never ceased.

"I suppose so?"

"He bought it for Mary, when they were engaged."

"Ah," said Michael, with something like a smirk on his normally mild, kind smile. "Salt in the wounds. Anyway, people say he didn't want the boy being raised as another bitter Tsarist nostalgic, and those were his wife's terms. Both of them got what they wanted, Carlisle got the boy, and his wife got a chance at recreating her old life."

"I see."

Edith's gaze wandered once more to the bar, where Sir Richard hunched, smoking pensively as his gang, as Michael called them, talked to each other around him, laughing frequently. She thought how often he had been alone at Downton, not really a part of the group, and how little effort had been made by any of them to welcome him as part of the family. She had been as guilty as anyone of operating under the assumption that he was only using Mary as the next rung up his social ladder, but now she wasn't so sure. If a peerage was all that mattered to him, there were lots of arrangements he could have come to without resorting to a divorce that would not only cost him financially, but be a nigh impassible social barrier to overcome. And apparently he'd done it for his son?

"I think the real story here," Edith said, "is that Sir Richard is looking for the same thing all of us are."

Michael leaned back in his chair, regarding her with his head tilted. "You see him as somehow a tragic romantic figure?"

"I don't know about that." But she did know something about the humiliation of being jilted, publicly. Cheeks burning but jaw set, she slid out of the booth. "I'm going to go speak to him."

* * *

"So, Richard…" Duncan dragged his stool closer to him, an unlit cigarette stuck between his clenched teeth, an habit that gave the sports editor his trademark cocky and wolfish grin.

Involuntarily, Richard felt his shoulder tense in anticipation. This kind of casual introduction was always followed by the craziest and least reasonable demands. What was the guy up to this time? Richard looked up for some help, but, besides them, Keith was lost to him, entranced in his debate about which restaurant in Glasgow served the best cranachan. As if to prove a point, Pete was poking Keith's stomach - testimony to the man's fondness for good old Scottish cuisine and beer - impertinently, a sure sign of the caricaturist's growing intoxication.

"Yes?"

"It appears that this automobile race in Le Mans is a done deal for next year."

"Looks like it. Good for the Frenchies, they put forth great effort into this," he answered diplomatically.

"I want the exclusity on this."

How predictable.

Richard took out another cigarette and snapped the case closed sharply. He lit up and tried not to grimace. After the strong aroma of the cigar, the cigarette left a foul taste on his tongue.

"Let me see if I understood clearly. You want me to let you loose on this topic, right? Because, with exclusivity comes total freedom, doesn't it?"

His friend had the decency not to deny.

Richard breathed deeply.

"Remember the last time you asked for total exclusivity, Duncan?" he exhaled the smoke from his lungs as he spoke.

"Not my fault if you misjudged the impact of the Olympics' return would have on the public. The papers I'm responsible of were in top form and brought you loads of money."

Richard could not deny it, but he would be caught dead before admitting it aloud, in front of Duncan of all people. To be totally honest, he had missed the ball on that one, not being able to recognize how much the scarred people all around Europe needed this kind of futile event to feel really at peace, at last, less than two years after the armistice. The fact that he had recently learnt that his casual mistress was around two months pregnant at the time was no excuse.

"And I thank you for that. But as a publisher, I have to think about the whole group, and I can't forget you almost sinked the _Herald_ with your stunts." Richard took a sip from his glass of whisky, the third or maybe the fourth in the evening. It was high time to go back home. Before that, he had to make a point, though. "Do you remember the time before last?"

"The _Tour de France_ was the big thing, then! How could I ever predict that some maniac would shoot at the Archiduke?" Reid protested in a protesting growl before shrugging resignatedly.

Richard could not help but smile. In the strangest way, the summer of 1914 had not the same meaning for Duncan as for the vast majority of Europeans. The man could be so close-minded at times! In all Europe, people only read papers to learn about the latest news, to know if peace had been saved or not.

But not Duncan.

The man had bet on the promotion of the _Tour de France 1914_ and focused all of his editorial efforts to this end. In the beginning it had worked, papers sold so well that reprints were necessary. But as the crisis grew bigger and bigger, as the threat loomed closer and closer, people forgot all about the cycling epic, and the sales dropped drastically, never to go up ever again. Then, for the following four years, all that mattered was the bloodbath on the continent. Duncan's paper neevr recovered form that blow, and for the first time of his career, Richard was forced to abandon one of his papers. Duncan Reid lived, breathed, ate and drank sports. In peacetime, it was his strength. When the political context became overwhelming, it was his biggest flaw as an editor. As the European crisis grew more accute day after day, he had remained deaf to what he called _political shenanigans_, only interested in his damn _Tour de France_, unaware of the fear that submerged every man and woman in Britain, in Europe. Actually, the only ones who had lived through the summer of 1914 without being conscious of what had been at stake then were probably Mary and her idiotic late husband.

"At the very least, can you get the BBC on board? Road racing is just made for radio-diffusion, you know," Reid asked again, less vehemently.

Now, that was a reasonable request, at last.

"Why not?" Richard answered amicably before his smile froze on his face as he recognized a familiar blonde walking to their group.

_Just his luck._

_The evening had started out so well._

* * *

The look on Sir Richard's face when their eyes met across the pub made Edith stop in her tracks, nearly resulting in a collision with a barmaid carrying a tray of drinks. Pleasure was clearly not the emotion he felt on seeing her, and for a moment she considered turning back. But then, just as quickly, he masked the expression with a bland smile, and he rose from his stool. She smiled, too, and continued her approach.

"Sir Richard," she said, reaching out to shake his hand. "I hope I'm not interrupting," she added, noting the curious faces of his three companions, "but I saw you sitting over here and couldn't pretend I hadn't. It's been a while. I hope you're well?"

_Well? _

_Considering who the man following you like an obedient pet is, you perfectly know how not well I am._

_Idiot._

The effort not to growl an insulting answer and turn his attention back to his friends was even greater than the one he had needed to form a smile.

"Lady Edith, what a pleasant surprise," he replied instead, cringing inwardly as soon as the words lefts his lips. Behind him, he could feel four pair of far too amused eyes. These guys' interest in his private life was getting really disturbing. "Congratulations on your column," he added politely, casting a furious glance at Pete who was cackling as he took a sip from his glass of whisky.

_When had his life turned into some kind of _vaudeville_ for his friends' amusement?_

Though she suspected he didn't entirely mean it, the pleasantries must be exchanged. _Why _had she thought speaking to him would be a good idea? One fleeting moment of sympathy, and here she was, being laughed at by Sir Richard Carlisle's cohorts.

"Thank you," she said. "Who'd have thought one letter to the _Times _editor would lead to a job at the _Sketch_?"

"Journalism is full of beautiful stories like that," he replied as amicably as possible. Edith being Edith, chances were high that she would take his words the wrong way, especially with the four idiots contemplating the scene gleefully. She already looked as if she had the impression they were mocking her, not him.

_The Crawley girls and their self-centeredness..._

"Talent, opportunity and someone willing to bet on you," he enumerated, counting on his fingers as he spoke, to clarify his opinion.

This could be applied to Edith's situation, and anyone who did not know Michael Gregson would swallow the myth. However, people in the know were perfectly conscious that the talented Earl's daughter only got the job because of one of Gregson's insane bets - the man was able to bet to his very last possession when he had the feeling an idea, or a game of cards, might work - and the fact he was clearly infatuated with her.

"The Holy Trinity, as we say," Keith was the first to interfere, his eyes fixed on Gregson.

Edith didn't care for the way Richard's friend was looking at Michael, shrewd newspaperman's eyes narrowed, and she wasn't sure whether Richard himself meant his complimentary words, or was making fun of her. Nevertheless, she tried to respond like the well-bred lady she was: "If only my parents only realized there was a religious component, they might be a little more open to having a journalist in the family."

The man who'd made the joke chuckled, politely, but the sniggers of the other three as they hunched over the bar once more were anything but.

"If only Richard had worked that angle when _he _was to be the journalist in the family," muttered one with an American accent and a compact, muscular build, to his lanky companion with thinning grey hair who smirked into his beer.

"This unrepentant miscreant?" His companion went on, his blue eyes shining with cruel mischief. "Do you really think somebody in their right mind would swallow this kind of act? Well, _some_ _people_ do like to hear and see what they wish to hear and see, so… We'll never know."

Jaw tensed, Edith inhaled sharply through her nose. She ought to go back to Michael, yet something kept her rooted to the floor in front of Sir Richard. If she wanted to be taken seriously in the newspaper world which, like the rest of the world, it seemed, was dominated by men, she couldn't very well hide behind coattails, could she?

"Sir Richard," she said, "I haven't had the pleasure of meeting your partners in crime."

Richard could not help being surprised by Edith's sharp reply and raised his eyes to observe the young woman who could have been his sister-in-law. Of course, there was still the typical trembling of the chin that betrayed her discomfort, the little frown that revealed her almost paralyzing self-consciousness, but he had to admit that Edithhad grown up considerably since he last saw her more than two years ago. Being jilted at the altar might have this effect, less painful maybe than divorce or widowhood, but more humiliating most probably and certainly as traumatizing. In the worst circumstances, the ugly duckling had not quite become a swan, but her independence, and the new fashions, seemed to suit her.

"Of course, forgive my manners," he humoured her, his trademark apologetic smile forming on his lips like a bad habit - the kind of smile that said _I'm sorry_ when his eyes remained unapologetic. He lit another cigarette before motionning behind him.

"The two schoolboys by the bar answer respectively to the names of Pete Inzaghi and Saul Cohen. The latter is my main investor, and the heir of secular familiy tradition of seedy dealing in Scottish politics. As for Pete, I've brought him back from a trip to the United States before the war. He's the main caricaturist for most of my papers."

Richard turned around to motion at his other companions.

"These guys are Duncan Reid, our Mr. Sport, and Keith McDonald, my right hand, and sometimes left one, for as long as I can remember."

"In other words, I'm d'Artagnan, and these ugly Scots are the Three Muskeeters." Pete was done cackling apparently, and had decided to present himself outlandishly, which was barely surprising, and display his most charming manners.

To what end? Richard had the sneaky impression that even Pete did not quite know himself.

As usual.

Edith shook hands with all four men, keenly aware of her mixed feelings of amusement at their boyish camaraderie, and her wariness of it. Not only because of what she knew of Sir Richard, but because Michael showed no interest in speaking with his former colleagues. Was there more to the story than he was telling?

"Well," she said, "much as I'd love to discuss which Dumas character Sir Richard best fits-"

"Richelieu," Pete interrupted. "He likes to think he's Colbert the genius, but he's clearly Richelieu."

Richard regarded him tolerantly, and Edith said, "I'd best get back to Mr. Gregson."

"Ah, Michael, we used to know him well," said Saul.

"Perhaps better than Lady Edith does," muttered Duncan.

"Dear old Mickey, a funny guy, always ready to…" Pete added, with mock nostalgia.

"Give him our regards," Richard interrupted the American hastily, in a tone that held nothing whatsoever of regard.

Keith was still silent.

Edith told them she would, and hastily made her way back to Michael, keenly aware of Richard's steady gaze at her back.

The young woman was barely out of earshot when Keith wondered aloud: "So, what do you think? Is she a fool or a complete idiot?"

"Isn't that a bit redundant?" Richard replied nonchalantly. If Edith Crawley was dumb enough to embark on a hopeless affair with a married man and a gambler, it was not his problem anymore. He went on: "As far as I know, it's no big secret that Mickey's wife's still breathing. Catatonic but alive."

The Gregsons' story was a sad one, granted, but in Richard's mind, no amount of tragedy authorized a man to fool a gullible girl like that. Maybe the scars from the _engagement of doom_ as Pete had dubbed it were rawer than he thought.

Or maybe he simply had no tolerance for cheating bastards as a whole. He had many flaws, but not that one. After a moment of silent musing, he noticed piercing blue eyes studying him without even having the decency of doing it discretely.

"No more Crawley drama, right?" Keith had this unnerving quality of reading people like an open book, his eyes openly dissecting his interlocutors' voices and body language as efficiently as Marie Curie's X-ray.

"Have no fear, I've a full plate of Vronski drama."

"Pity though," Pete interrupted their little _aparté_. "She's a good writer, and I hope Mickey's stupidity isn't going to scare her away from journalism when the ugly truth comes out. It would be a waste."

Richard was tempted to agree with their resident Yankee, but he could feel Keith's silent hostility, thick as the London smog.

"If she stops writing because of that, it would only prove she started for the wrong reasons." Duncan affirmed quite brutaly, unconsciouly providing Richard with an easy way out of the uncomfortable discussion.

"True," he agreed before standing up and motioning to a waiter. It was their tradition. Richard always ended up with the bill. "Now, gentlemen, if you excuse me, there's an impatient boy who's waiting for his bedtime story."

As Edith approached the table, Michael stood. "Well?" he said, a nervous smile twitching across his face.

"That was certainly awkward."

"Why do you think I didn't go over with you?"

Edith arched her eyebrows at him as she resumed her seat. "I expected some due to his drama with Mary, but his friends hinted there was more to it than you just not being a member of their exclusive club. Care to enlighten me?"

"Newspaper secrets? Hardly."

She continued to regard him, and he frowned.

"As to my personal life," he said, taking out his cigarette case and lighter, "I've been very up front with you from the start. Don't you think if I had anything else to tell you, my darling, that I would?"

She shook herself; how could she have let the likes of Richard Carlisle and his band of merry men get to her? "Of course," she said, accepting a cigarette from him, then leaned over the table for him to light it.

The ordinarily relaxing smoke did not entirely put her at ease.


	2. The same old story

_**London, summer of 1922**_

Before Shawsie came into his life, Richard had always been wary of a wasted afternoon. Even on week-ends, he'd needed to do something: have a game of tennis, pay visits to friends or lovers, play chess with his father, run errands, finish late paperwork, devise business plans... He was a restless man who believed that lounging on deckchair on a sunny terrace, a half-finished book open on his knees was a utter waste of time. It was not that he could not enjoy those simple pleasures – he loved nothing more than stretching on the deck of his sailboat or the feeling of the late afternoon sun in the mountains. But he was simply unable to do nothing in London without immediately thinking about all the things he could do instead of fritter an afternoon away.

Now, forgetting his current reading and letting himself be absorbed in the silent observation of the eighteen-month old boy's shenanigans was his favorite activity on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Since Shawsie had discovered the joys of running around on two legs, he had become a living nightmare for his nanny and a source of infinite marvel and amusement for Richard. This afternoon, the boy seemed keen to walk in his father's footsteps and succeed in his first daring climb-a grassy mound less than three feet high. The problem was that he was his father's son and stubbornly refused to walk along the flat slope, preferring the very slightly steeper side. For the fourth time now, he faced the obstacle and ran on wobbly legs, inevitably failing the attempt, ruining his white sailor suit with even more grass stains. Since he was his father's and his mother's son, the failure provoked another short-lived fit of rage.

"That should be enough for today, Sir Richard," the nanny said sternly in her strongly accented English. "Mr. Alexander will hurt himself." She was already halfway across the grass to him.

Richard had refused that his son be raised in the Vronski's bitter and entitled world, but he did not want Shawsie to grow up cut out from his Russian heritage either. Miss Mikhailkova was a very competent woman but they kept on disagreeing about what a proper education for a boy was.

"Let him be," Richard interrupted her, not for the first time in the afternoon. "He needs to learn his limits on his own."

Well, as long as he did not try to run through the rose bushes while chasing after his ball, which had granted him an alarmed reprimand from the nanny, and a sterner one from his father when he had protested against the first one.

Miss Mikhailkova shot him a disapproving look, reminding him silently he should consider himself lucky that a nanny with such sterling references as hers had deigned to work for a divorced man, rich and powerful as he was.

"His suit is ruined," she merely answered, her tone underlining the missing word. _Again_.

"I think I can afford that kind of price for this little lesson."

When Shawsie realized that neither of the adults would come to his rescue, he sobered up and, as suddenly as the urge of climbing the mound had taken him, he turned back and came back to his more age-appropriate toys scattered on the terrace.

_Lesson learned, for now._

Inside the house, the ringing of a telephone resounded through the open windows, and Richard hoped it was not Keith, or Saul, or any of the Vronskis, or anyone important.

His deckchair was far too comfortable, and watching Shawsie as he began a shaky pyramid of blocks doomed to fall down and provoke another fit of rage was far too amusing.

* * *

Mary had just hung up the telephone when a rap on the library door precipitated a heavy thump against it. She looked up from the desk to see it swing open enough for Sybbie to toddle through, followed by Tom with George squirming in his arms, clearly wishing to be on the floor with his cousin. Uncle Tom obliged, and with a happy squeal George scurried across the carpet on all fours.

"Sorry to interrupt," Tom said, "but we were on our way outside and the children asked after you."

"Sybbie did, anyway," said Mary as she got up from her chair as her niece barreled into her skirt, hugging her around the knees.

Sybil's daughter been a chatterbox since her second birthday earlier in the summer, and while her own son babbled _mama_, it had no fixed definition yet, used to babble about anything from her to Isis to the ashtray he discovered the day before when he pulled up on the coffee table in the drawing room.

"Hello, darling girl." Mary stooped to kiss and smooth the mop of unruly curls which refused to stay neatly contained beneath her hair ribbon.

"Piggie!" Sybbie thrust out her dimpled hand and revealed clutched in it one of the toy pigs from the nursery farm set.

"Yes, Auntie Mary has been dealing with the pigs all morning. And frankly I welcome the interruption."

"Oink oink!"

"Very good," Mary said. "What does the horse say?"

"Horsey neigh!"

Sybbie took off prancing around the Persian carpet, and George added his own attempts at equine sounds to the cacophany and crawled after her.

"Wishful thinking?" said Tom, coming round the sofa as Mary picked up the cup of tea Carson had brought her earlier and she'd forgotten till now.

"What I wouldn't give for an afternoon free to ride," she said. "There are times when I wonder why I didn't leave all the saving of the estate to you men after all."

Tom grinned. "I can handle whatever else needs doing if you need me to."

Swallowing the now tepid tea, Mary shook her head. "The children would be so disappointed if you didn't go out with them, and I've attended to everything except for a personal matter."

"Can it be put off?"

"It has been, unfortunately, for about ten days."

Tom's brows knit, and she could see him mentally working his way back through the past week and a half. Her heart rose to her throat with the irrational fear that he might guess something near her secret, though when he darted out to catch Sybbie in the nick of time before she collided with the leg of one of the sofa side tables whilst looking back over her shoulder at George, she hoped briefly he might lose his train of thought.

Alas, as he swung Sybbie up high, he said "Since the church bazaar?"

"Just something one of the guests mentioned and I've been meaning to look into," she said, not untruthfully. "No no, Georgie!" Mary moved to prise the cord of one of Mama's favorite lamps from her son's grasp. He laughed and grabbed for it again, but abruptly his mood became a tearful one when she picked him up to carry him away from the tempting object.

"All right, you two," said Tom. "Outside we go."

"Side!" squealed Sybbie as he lowered her to the ground.

"Better to rip off the plaster and be done with it," Tom said, and reached for George.

Ordinarily Mary would be only too willing to let him deal with her son's tantrum, but it was a testimony to how little she looked forward to the task ahead of her that she kept hold of George, murmuring soothing words to him as she kissed his head. His soft brown hair was growing in quite thick, and would soon require its first trim.

When she did relinquish him to his uncle, he stopped crying at once, babbling, "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma!"

"Typical," Mary said with a roll of her eyes, and Tom walked off with him, winking at her over his shoulder as he coaxed, "Say _T-t-t-t-Tom._"

"Tom!" shouted Sybbie from the door.

"Not you, you little pixie!"

Mary continued to watch the library door for a moment after they had gone out, her smile gradually fading. Tom was right, she thought, and with a sigh she turned and strode back to the desk. Even so, the thought flitted through her mind that she might escape after all-he might not be at home. Relaxing hadn't exactly been his favorite weekend pastime, when she'd known him before.

She picked up the telephone and said into the mouthpiece: "I need to put a call through to London, please. To Sir Richard Carlisle.

* * *

Inevitably, the shaky pyramid had crumbled the moment Shawsie tried to add a fifth block to his creation. However, this time, the expected cries of willful, stubborn rage did not come and, even more significantly, Shawsie did not start again as he adopted a sulky attitude.

"You're getting tired, lad. It's time to go with Mrs. Mikhailkova and have a nap." Richard stood up from his deckchair to scoop his son in his arms.

The boys' eyes immediately welled up with big tears and his bottom lip started to quiver as he shook his head and protested faintly, only confirming the adults in their opinion.

"No nap!"

"But you will," Richard replied patiently, passing the lively child to the nanny's waiting arms. "What is it, Brooks?" He addressed the servant who had just come out over the renewed protestations.

"Lady Mary Crawley for you on the phone, Sir."

As usual, the valet-turned-butler and personal secretary wore a unreadable expression. If he was surprised that a former fiancé was calling his now divorced employer, he surely did not show it. On the other hand, Richard had a hard time hiding his own surprise, stopping mid-movement, Shawsie still suspended in the air, struggling against the secure grasp, not yet in his nanny's arms. Earnest wailing shook Richard from his momentaneous surprise and he let Mrs. Mikhailkova take the boy upstairs for his nap.

"I see. Did she say what she wanted?"

"I'm afraid she didn't, Sir," Brooks answered, allowing himself to raise one eyebrow.

With long strides, Richard crossed the living-room to take the call, his mind conjuring all the reasons, reasonable or extravagant, that would push Mary to call him after all this time. Did Edith's thing with Gregson already blow up? Did the Pamuk story get out from unexpected source? Worse, did the Vronskis already cause mayhem in Haxby?

What the hell did she want from him?

"Mary, it's been a long time," he answered, his voice not as pleasant as the greeting words necessitated. "What can I do for you?"

After all, doing things for Lady Mary Crawley seemed to be his goal in life, as Saul put it in the most non diplomatic way years ago.

Upstairs, Shawsie protested loudly against the cruel injustice of being forced to have a nap.

On the other end of the telephone line, at Downton Abbey, Sybbie's happy squeals as she bounded to the front door echoed to Mary in the library. She was relieved for the moment's noise to collect herself after Richard's greeting. Though she'd braced for an awkward conversation, she realized there was simply no way to be prepared for the strangeness of a voice she'd last heard two and a half years ago and never expected to hear again rasping across two hundred miles of wire. Not to mention the fact that he knew, with so much time and distance between them, that she would only be calling for a favor.

After all, calling Sir Richard Carlisle for favors had been almost the entire basis of their relationship, hadn't it? she thought, with the slightest twinge of guilt.

"Richard," she said, by way of greeting, matching his cold courtesy. "I'm sorry to bother you at the week-end. If I'm interrupting anything, I'm happy to call back another time. It's just...well, I suppose you've read in the papers, about that man who was struck by a lorry in Piccadilly?"

On a scale from one to ten, Richard thought, this was a good twelve of unexpected.

"A knocked-down pedestrian in London, really?" He asked for clarification, digging his memory for anything that might have caught his attention.

Traffic incidents were becoming more and more common in London, cars crashing into each other, striking cyclists and pedestrians… Besides the odd article full of concern about the public safety, these kinds of events barely attracted any attention from journalists anymore, and even less from the readers.

Well, at least, if anything, Richard felt grateful that Mary did not waste any time in false pleasantries and stated her business immediately.

_If only she'd been that honest before…_

"You'll have to fill me up. Contrary to Yorkshire, casualties are becoming quite common here in London, you kn-"

_Damn._

The words had left his lips and it was too late to take them back.

"I'm sorry, I just mean, well, you know…" He was rambling and he hated that.

"It's all right. I suppose I am associated with rather more traffic accidents than the average person." Mary replied stiffly, though she knew by the way he was rambling that Richard truly had mis-spoken, and had not meant to offend. "Certainly to Londoners such incidents must be beneath notice."

She chafed her thumb against the stick microphone. Frankly, she was a little embarrassed that she hadn't considered before now that Richard would not at once know what she was referring to.

"Perhaps you won't be able to help at all…"

Her words trailed away with a sigh; now who was rambling?

"The man in question-a Mr. Green-was valet to Lord Anthony Gillingham," she explained. "He's dead now. And I think there might be rather more to the story than falling in front of the lorry."

Glancing to the door, afraid suddenly that someone might barge in unnannounced, she cupped her hand around the mouthpiece and lowered her voice.

"I think he may have been pushed."

Her thumb pressed harder into the base of the phone, and she held her breath, awaiting Richard's response. Would he be annoyed that she'd interrupted his weekend to pester him not only with trivialities, but with conspiracy theories, as well? Or, worse, amused?

Richard took the mahogany chair by the console which his friend Charles McKintosh had designed for him, and settled comfortably, reaching for his cigarettes and the geometrical pewter ashtray by the telephone.

_This was going to be a quite long call._

"Lord Gillingham's valet?" he repeated absently, buying time to collect his thoughts. So the rumors he had heard about the sudden break up of the Viscount with Mabel Lane Fox, and regular visits to Yorkshire were not that unfounded. "Do you want to bring justice for your suitor's valet?" he asked innocently, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice as much as he could.

Only eighteen months of marriage had been long enough for Mary to adopt Crawley's dumb sense of nobility.

_No more Crawley drama, I hope._

Richard knew he should put an end to this conversation quickly. If his gang or, God forbid, his father ever heard that the had accepted to help Mary again, he would never hear the end of it. Yet, for the first time in months, he felt relaxed and curious, and he had time to kill until Shawsie woke up from his nap, so he humoured his former fiancée once again.

"If that's the case, I'm afraid I can't be of much help," he went on between two puffs of smoke as he lit his cigarette. "The man's death didn't raise much interest, the lorry driver didn't kill himself out of guilt unlike this accident near Fleet Street last month, the only policemen who went around the site of the accident were probably traffic peelers…"

"On the contary," Mary replied through her teeth, jaw stiffening as much with her anger about the situation as with her irritation at Richard's dismissiveness. "Green got exactly what he deserved. I simply hope that justice won't be served by the wrong man."

_Think, think, think before you talk this time._

Why would Mary want a man dead? Why would she ask him to put a lid on yet another potential scandal? Why would she take the risk to call _him_?

Her voice was cold and harsh, with a slight tremor, which meant that this was a very serious matter, a serious _personal _matter. But she sounded vengeful, as only a witness, not a victim, could be. Besides, if anything serious had happened to Mary, the Earl of Grantham and the Dowager would have taken the matter into their own vengeful hands.

That left only one solution. Mary wanted justice on someone's behalf.

She said that Green was a valet… That meant downstairs, surely. There, only two people could ellicit such a reaction from Mary, Anna and Carson.

Carson was a strong fellow, perfectly able to defend himself. And in the improbable situation in which he would not, Mrs Hughes would throttle anyone coming after the butler. That left only Anna.

Anna, almost a sister to Mary.

Anna, married to an ex-convict, and a former soldier who had taken part into the bloody Boer War.

A man for whom Richard had corrupted a judge to get his head out of the awaiting noose.

_No more Crawley drama, right?_

No such luck.

"Well, if I may be totally honest, bandying your theories around isn't exactly the best way to keep this kind of secret… secret," he finally answered, carefully choosing his words. "As far as the outside world is concerned, this is only a sad traffic accident. And this Green did nothing to deserve to be hit by a lorry."

Mary released a long breath, though it did little to relieve the tightness in her chest. She was glad Richard was not present to see her as she leaned over the desk, cradling her forehead in her hand, fingertips pressed into her throbbing temples.

He was right, of course-and she wasn't entirely certain why she had phoned him, what she had expected him to do. Perhaps precisely _because _it must be secret, and of everyone she knew, nobody was better at keeping secrets than Richard. Ironically. Certainly he had kept more than a few pertaining to Anna's husband, in particular. His angry words that night when she'd told him it was over, she was dissolving their engagement, came back to her:

"_And why do the papers leave you alone over Bates? Why has there been nothing linking him to the great Earl of Grantham?"_

"_I suppose you stopped it."_

"_With threats, bribes, calling in favors, yes I stopped it." _

He'd said the secrecy wouldn't hold if she threw him over, yet even through Bates' months of confinement no more about the accused murderer's ties with the Earl of Grantham had emerged in the papers than her own with the Turkish attache's had. Even after everything, she harbored no doubt that she could trust him.

"It's a terrible secret to bear," she said, at length.

How had Anna muddled through beneath its weight for so long? How _would _she, beneath the added burden of suspicion that Bates had done something, however just, however justifiable, that threatened once again to take him from her forever, when she needed him more than ever?

Mary's chest ached. She wouldn't wish that loss on any woman.

"I'm sorry to burden you with it, Richard. I know you've enough on your mind."

After their parting, Mary had made it clear that her former fiance was not to be a topic of discussion at Downton, and her family had acquiesced. They all-including Matthew-thought that chapter of her life was too painful to revisit, and they were not _entirely _wrong-thoughin truth Mary was as pained by her own conduct as by Richard's.

The taboo had not, however, stopped Edith from almost gleefully relaying the gossip she had learned about him on her most recent excursion to London: that after a shotgun wedding to an exiled Russian aristocrat, she had divorced him, and it had cost him dearly, in every way possible-including, to Papa's chagrin, Haxby Park.

"Congratulations on your son," she said. "I hadn't heard till Edith bumped into you. You must be very proud."

As surprising and unexpected the turn of the conversation was, it showed that Mary had caught his meaning, which was a good sign, for everybody concerned. The less they even talked about it, the better off everybody would be in the end. He followed her lead, even if it cost him greatly.

"Thank you," he answered truthfully, more than he would have anticipated. "His name is Alexander - after some tsar, I guess - but my family and I have called him Shawsie from the first day." The words came easily, more than expected when one talked about his child with a former fiancée. In fact, the words came always easily whenever he evoked the boy. "He's quite lively, some might argue, but I'm very proud, indeed."

Richard made profit of the lull in the conversation to gather his thoughts. The end of their more serious discussion did not stop him to schedule in a corner of his memory a courtesy visit to an old friend in Scotland Yard. Philip, now Commissioner Mortimer, and him had known each other since their school days in Edinburgh, and both men had risen high in their respective ranks, helping each other more than regularly over the years, exchanging exclusivity for information. A policeman had more power but a journalist had more freedom, and the combination of the two was unstoppable.

"How's George?" he asked, as much for the sake of propriety as for genuine curiosity. The circumstances of the boy's birth had made it impossible to forget the boy's name. That day back in 1921, little George Crawley had appeared twice in the _Times_, quite a feat for a day-old boy, among the other births celebrated by the social circles of the conservative paper and among the obituaries in a short text announcing his father's demise.

Mary was surprised he knew her son's name-briefly-then she remembered this was Richard Carlisle she was talking to; he'd have seen the birth announcement-and the obituary, too. _Mr. Crawley is survived by his wife, Lady Mary Crawley, and his son, George Crawley, both of Yorkshire..._

"Nine months, but he thinks he's two and tries to do everything his cousin Sybbie does." She supposed Richard had heard about Sybil...Quickly, she went on, "Tom-Mr. Branson-took them outside."

She turned in her chair to look out the window at the front lawn and saw her brother-in-law scooping up Sybbie, who'd just taken a spill.

"Oh dear. It appears there are more clothes to get grass stains out of." Realising what she was saying, she said, with a self-effacing laugh, "And now you see what a mundane conversationalist I've become, talking about laundry. I should probably take that as my cue to ring off."

_He thinks he's two and tries to do everything his cousin Sybbie does._

Or, in other words, George Crawley was a pain in the arse.

Richard smiled, happy to be able to hide behind the telephone, and took a puff of his cigarette. The description sounded awfully like someone Richard knew but he refrained from commenting.

"Summer, grass and kids, an awful combination, indeed," he answered instead, thinking of Mrs. Mikhailkova's earlier remark. "I'm seriously considering giving the laundress a healthy rise for her trouble."

Mary smirked to herself, glad once again that he couldn't see her, as she considered just how much trouble the staff who cared for any child of Richard Carlisle's was likely to encounter. course, the father was equally troublesome, but he was at least his talk of pay rises was a different tune to the one he'd sung that dreadful Christmas when he'd groused about the servants having their half-day off.

"Are you pleased with Alexander's governess?" she asked, since Richard didn't seem keen for their conversation to end, after all. For all she'd dreaded this necessary telephone call, the subject the uncomfortable one had given way to was enjoyable-and absolutely the last subject she'd ever imagined passing a Saturday afternoon discussing with her former fiance. "We had to dismiss one in the spring when Mama caught her...showing preferential treatment to George. The new one's better, I suppose. The children seem happy with her."

Not, so happy, she supposed, with another glance out the window, as they romped about the grounds with Tom. They were coming back toward the house, George perched on his uncle's shoulders, Sybbie scampering along beside them with her ribbons untied and chubby fists clutching wildflowers and weeds she'd picked.

Richard crushed his cigarette in the ashtray more forcefully than necessary. She had to broach that topic…

"Well, since I had a say in the hiring of the present one, I'm very happy," he answered curtly, trying not to take months of frustrations created by the endless fights about ignorant nannies and education as a whole on an innocent bystander.

Mary had enough in her own plate as it was.

Then again, if a certain person had not led him along for the best part of two years, they would not have this surrealist conversation about the children they had with other people.

As if on cue, Shawsie made himself heard from upstairs.

"Listen, I'd love to speak more, but I've the impression I'm needed upstairs," he spoke again as he got up from his chair. "For the better or the worse, I don't know, it seems like I'm the only one whose scolding is efficient, for now."

Yes, that was one of Richard's talents she was well acquainted with, though Mary did not, of course, pass comment. Especially when she'd clearly made him cross with her inadvertant slip-up about the nanny. Divorce, she supposed, brought its own set of difficulties to raising a child without a spouse.

"Perhaps while you're giving the laundress a pay rise, you ought to dock the governess' salary for not doing her job," she joked instead, as she got up. "I must go, too. Tom's just brought the children in, and for some reason George prefers the way I feed him his scrambled egg at tea. And I prefer that to the strained peas, which always means the laundress has extra laundry from _me_."

Her fingers flexed around the telephone as she contemplated how to say goodbye. She'd expected this conversation to be completely business-like, even hostile, yet it had been civil...more than that, _friendly_. Which was rather unchartered territory for her and Richard.

"If you do hear anything about...the other matter," she said, "do let me know. I've been thinking I might stay with Aunt Rosamund in a week or two." Not to do the London season, of course, but for a change, to see friends in town. She wasn't entirely sure what had made her tell _him _so now.

"There's no other matter, and if you want it to stay that way, don't babble about it," he admonished patiently. The cold and careful Lady Mary Crawley could be incredibly naive at times. "However, if you want George to acquire even more bad habits, bring him over while you're in town. Shawsie needs some company of his age."

For a second, it seemed that Mrs. Mikhailkova's demonstration of authority had worked, whatever it was, then the cries started again, louder if it was possible. More than anything, he should give her a raise for her patience and her tolerance.

"I should really go. Goodbye Mary."

A phrase she thought she'd heard him utter for the last time two years ago. And now here he was, saying it again, having just invited her to bring her son to play with his.

"I'll let you know when we're in town," she said, slightly dazed as she hung up the phone.

There were times when she certainly questioned whether her life took more surreal turns than other people's did.


End file.
